


this is the distance; this is my game face

by celosiaa



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nausea, Secret Santa, Stabbing, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28370097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celosiaa/pseuds/celosiaa
Summary: Secret Santa for @alexandenight! Prompt: Jon hiding a stab wound and Jon proceeds to work himself until it becomes serious. Martin (or whoever) are not pleased to find all the blood.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 28
Kudos: 168





	this is the distance; this is my game face

**Author's Note:**

> CW nausea, vomiting, blood

Fine.

He was _fine_.

He will heal; he always does, these days.

Right?

It’s all such a blur, whatever had happened after he and Basira had managed to get out of the room where they had ambushed a sleeping Melanie, drugged her, and removed the bullet from her leg. Her _rotting_ leg. Jon had seen it spidering up her veins, the anger, the violence, the drive to _hurt_ and to be proud of it. They had no choice—that’s what he tells himself, anyway. Has to tell himself.

How else can he live with the fact that he so deeply betrayed the trust of a friend?

_Not a friend, not really._

_Never had been._

But he has to admit—the scalpel dug into him, where his chest meets his left shoulder—hurts far more than any of the countless wounds he’s received in the past few years of hell. And that—well, that is truly saying something. But it would heal. It has to, right? He _is_ the almighty Archivist after all.

The thought alone is enough to fill his mouth with bile. Or, perhaps—perhaps it’s the way his head spins even as he slumps at his desk, panting through the end of _just one more statement. Just one more statement. Just one more._

His vision tunnels mercilessly, blurring the lines on the page so much that he should not be able to read it. But his lips still form the shape of the words, the same wretched voice projects the nightmares of others into the gaze of the Eye, feeding it whatever it wants. As if it is the one trapped in a cage, and not Jon himself. Trapped, and greying out, and spinning, spinning, spinning—

His body is forced to bend under the force of his retching, and he quickly claps a hand over his mouth as the statement ends, at last. _At last._ Eyes on the floor now, around the pulsing of his vision, he finds himself covered in blood—his own, Melanie’s, he cannot tell. Perhaps both.

Some of it at least must be his, however, as the floor is suddenly coming much closer, rising to meet his face, no way to stop it—

“J—oh, _shit shit shit!”_

Numbness washes over him like a blanket—he does not feel whether he hits the floor.

—

“…god, oh my god, Jon.”

_…Martin?_

_No no, can’t be._

_Can’t be, it’s._

_It’s a trick._

_Get up get up have to get up_

“Woah woah woah, just lie still. Please, just lie still.”

A voice, gentle, trembling. Static. Echoing through the ever-growing fog seeping into his heart, his mind.

_Martin?_

“You’ve—you’ve lost a lot of blood, I think.”

Pressure settles in against his shoulder, sending lightning down his left arm and up his neck, vision darkening again.

“Ah— _ahh!_ Mar—”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry! I know, I’ve got to keep pressure on. You’re still bleeding.”

Opening his eyes at last, Jon sees that Martin is, in fact, correct—blood is everywhere, oozing from the…shoulder…thing. Shoulder? Someone had hurt his shoulder.

It’s all so very fuzzy at the moment. All except for the the fact that _Martin is here,_ kneeling over him, alive. Looking after him.

_Not gone yet. Not gone._

“Who did this, Jon?” Martin demands lowly, anger and panic putting color on his face for the first time in months.

“S’fine, M’tin, he replies, the slurring of his words alarms even himself.

_Must have lost a lot_

_A lot of blood_

“No, it _isn’t_!” Martin nearly shouts, voice ticking upwards with his disbelief. “I _know_ someone did this Jon, and…and you need to tell me who.”

“Thought you— _ah— **ha**_ —weren’t. Supposed to— _ha_ —care.”

Regret immediately pools in his stomach at Martin’s stricken face, quickly masked once again by the fog that eternally surrounds him now. Or perhaps, not just regret—as Jon finds his stomach upturned again, gagging away from Martin, can’t let him see.

“Alright, easy, easy,” Martin soothes anxiously, rolling Jon over and onto his right side as he continues to heave. “Just let it out, it’s alright.”

Whatever “it” was, Jon would love nothing more. Would love nothing more than to rid himself of this weariness, this constant illness, shakiness, hunger. All of it. But he hasn’t been able to put anything real in his stomach for days—nothing to chuck up beyond his own suffering. Still, it’s a knife in his gut, in his wounded shoulder, in every square inch of his aching and exhausted body.

“Why isn’t this healing?” mutters Martin from behind him, more to himself than to Jon, pressing the flannel back up against the still-weeping wound. “The other one did.”

“Other…other one?”

“Oh,” Martin starts as Jon’s eyes meet his, as though surprised there’s even a shred of coherency left in him. “You—you hit your head on your desk when you went down. I couldn’t—didn’t catch you in time. I’m sorry.”

It’s the greatest depth of sincerity Jon has gotten from him in god knows how long. And it seems that Martin realizes his error too—as he immediately begins to glance nervously around the room, looking for anyone who might have overheard his moment of weakness with Jon. Of humanity. Of _care._

_He used to care so deeply._

_And I pushed him away._

_Pushed him right into the Lonely._

A second wave of unbearable pain courses through him, of an entirely different kind. Gasping as his stomach turns again, Jon cannot help but curl in on himself, desperate not to start retching again, make everything worse as he always always does.

_“Gah—”_

“Oh, oh, steady. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Even as the words of comfort wash over him, the first he’s heard since he’s woken up, they are so very far from a soothing balm. For Jon both knows and _Knows_ that Martin will leave him as soon as he realizes there is no real danger; realizes that Jon is only just falling apart again. Remembers that he should not be here with him, and decides that Jon is not worth the risk.

Again.

“Bleeding seems like it’s stopping—that’s good, right?”

_Terrible._

He cannot say it, but he knows.

_I’ll wake, and you’ll be gone._

_You’ll be gone._

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @celosiaa if you like! have a great day!
> 
> love, connor


End file.
